THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — Several Dutch rabbis criticized a rabbinical court’s recognition of non-Jews who observe Torah laws.

The recognition by the Beit Din, or rabbinical court,  took place at an oath-taking ceremony attended by several dozen Noahides — a term referring to non-Jews who observe the seven categories of religious laws that are specified in the Torah as part of God’s covenant with Noah after the flood.

Members of Rotterdam’s Noahide Ohel Abraham community took the oath last month at a ceremony led by the beit din presided over by two Orthodox rabbis from Israel, Uri Sherky and Efraim Choban, and a Dutch rabbinical student, Meir Villegas Henriquez. The ceremony constituted the first official recognition of Noahides in the Netherlands by Orthodox rabbis.

“It is not a good thing. It’s unclear, neither here nor there, and I don’t like it,” Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, a chief rabbi of the Netherlands, told the Jewish weekly NIW about the beit din convened for the Noahide community, which was established in The Netherlands in 2008. Several other Dutch rabbis also expressed their discomfort regarding the ceremony.

The Israeli rabbis who presided at the Beit Din belong to the Noahide World Center in Jerusalem, a body which supports the Noahide oath and way of life as means of strengthening the bond between Jews and non-Jews.

“Some of them don’t want to convert, others can’t,” Villegas Henriquez told JTA, referring to the Ohel Abraham community. “But they all want to become closer to Judaism and we want to help because this is a welcome step. We’re supposed to be a light unto the nations but that’s difficult to achieve by only praying in a synagogue with other Jews.”

Responding to criticism by Dutch rabbis, Villegas Henriquez said in an op-ed defending his congregation published in NIW on Jan. 5. that the Dec. 16 oath-taking ceremony did not violate Halacha, or Jewish religious law.